Patch 5.2 - Preparing to Kill a King (Feb 26th)
It looks like we will see Patch 5.2 on in roughly two weeks, or February 26th, assuming that everything goes well.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

With 5.2 fast approaching I’ve been wanting to get my thoughts together on how I should be playing in the last couple weeks before the patch. Are there any reps I should catch up on; do I need to worry about spending currencies or upgrading items; and just in general what do I need to start doing now to maximize my play time before and after the patch releases? This isn’t going to be earth shattering info to anyone who has been following closely, but hopefully it’s a helpful reference.

So, It’s Like a Seat of Sound?
It’s probably most appropriate to start by talking about the new raid, the Throne of Thunder, as entering and clearing it is the goal for PvE progression. The raid is located on a new island, which can be reached by using a portal found in your faction’s Shado-pan camp on the west coast of Townlong Steppes. When 5.2 releases you’ll automatically receive a quest that will get you there, so no need to write that one down.

As the 5.2 raid Throne of Thunder is one continuous, sprawling dungeon, each difficulty will open in its entirety once unlocked. Normal difficulty will be available the first week, then Heroic the week after. LFR will, as usual, be broken up into sub-sections and those will be releasing over time, likely with the first section opening with Heroic in the second week, and a new section each week afterward. Of course we don’t tend to give out patch release dates ahead of time, because things can slip, but right now we’re targeting the last week of February.

To get into the LFR difficulty of Throne of Thunder you’ll need an item level of 480. A quick way to find your item level is to search for your character in the upper right search bar of WorldofWarcraft.com. Your item level is a big number in the upper right of your character’s profile. You can also see it in-game by expanding the advanced character stats.

The new LFR will require an average ilvl of 480, so get crackin'!

If you’re shy of 480 you’ve got some gearing up to do. There are a few different methods of finding and targeting upgrades. The in-game Dungeon Journal can filter by class and spec, showing you what each boss drops that’s good for you, and is actually a pretty easy and straightforward way to create a shopping list. The one downside is you’re not going to have lists of Valor-purchasable items with the Dungeon Journal to compare against. Likely the most popular strategy is to use item database sites and look for specific items (LFR / Valor / BoE), and arrange by ilvl or source. Askmrrobot.com offers an upgrade list too. I’ve also recently been using their new Find Upgrades feature, which has a bunch of useful options. It’s a premium feature so they do charge for it, but it’s free for the first week or so. If nothing else it can be a good option to just help you clear that 480 hurdle.

Upgrade 'Em While You Got 'EmLike prior raid tiers we’re down-converting Valor to Justice with the patch. This means any Valor you have before the patch will become Justice, and any Justice over the cap will be converted to gold. There is a difference this time in that current Valor items are not being changed to cost Justice, and instead their cost is just being reduced (25-50%). That means you’re not going to benefit by waiting for the down-conversion to pick up any current Valor items. You’re going to want to strategize spending Valor beforehand, if there’s anything you want to buy with Justice (and there’s new Justice-bought heirlooms coming in 5.2), or maybe even if you want the gold. With both currencies at cap you could make around 1,400 gold with the conversion, so maybe that’s even a consideration. After the patch you’ll need to build Valor back up if you want any Valor items of course, but at a reduced cost it may be an option if you’re still looking to get over that 480 hurdle.

Personally I’m not really looking to pick up any Justice items, so my plan is to spend all of my Valor before the down-conversion, and the next section describes what I’m likely to spend the majority of it on.

Later Space Mummy
Item upgrades won’t be available in 5.2, so getting those upgrades done before the patch hits is probably a good idea. Upgrades are likely coming back in 5.3 (at least for PvE), but spending the Valor now on upgrading pieces you don’t expect to replace quickly is pretty safe. Of course you could always get that lucky boss drop that completely demolishes your fully upgraded item, but those kinds of situations are par for the course.

This is one place where the Askmrrobot upgrade recommendation tool is pretty helpful for me. The rating on how best to spend Valor is quite useful. I’m over 480 so I’m personally just looking at spending Valor on upgrading my best items now.

Is that a mount!? Can it be a mount!? I want that to be a mount. GIMME DAT MOUNT

Be Less Charming Every Day
Throughout Mists of Pandaria we’ve all been working to collect Lesser Charms of Good Fortune. Once a week there’s a quest to exchange 90 Lesser Charms for 3 Elder Charms. The Elder Charms can then be used to get an additional chance at loot (bonus roll) from raid boss kills. In 5.2 the weekly quest to turn in the Lesser Charms changes, and will instead give you 3 Mogu Runes of Fate. The Mogu Runes of Fate can be used the same way, on bonus rolls, but only in the 5.2 Throne of Thunder raid and on the two new world bosses (Nalak and Oondasta). Elder Charms will still be available for the 5.0 raids, but they’ll instead be dropping from mobs in the new outdoor Thundering Isle zone.

There are a few different ways you can use this information depending on how well you’re geared, and how well geared you want to be before the patch. The new raid will require 480 item level for the LFR, and so if you’re at or above 480 you’re probably wise to just hold on to your Lesser Charms. If not, those bonus rolls may well be the quickest way to getting into the Throne of Thunder.

Personally I’m hanging on to mine. I think spending some Valor is probably the wiser course for getting over the hurdle. I do plan to still be doing dailies in 5.2, but I have enough reps at Exalted now that I don’t expect I’ll be coming across enough Lesser Charms to be overburdened and not working through my stack each week.

I'll just come back when you look like you're in a better mood...

Ketchup
As I briefly mentioned in the Currency Conversion section, 5.0 Valor items are seeing their prices reduced by 50%, and those added with the 5.1 factions (Operation Shieldwall and Dominance Offensive) will see their prices cut by 25%. In addition, the chance to get drops in the 5.0 LFR raids is being greatly increased, including the chance to get an item when using an Elder Charm for a bonus roll. All of this means gearing up alts will be a bit quicker, and if you’re not at that 480 requirement yet it should be pretty fruitful to run those raids for a few more weeks to get you there.

Sounds Like Heavy Metal
This isn’t really anything you can prepare for, but I think it’s at least worth mentioning here. In the Throne of Thunder, the Normal and Heroic raid bosses have a chance to drop an item with a new Thunderforged designation. (Normal / Heroic) Thunderforged items are 6 item levels higher than their standard counterparts. Bonus rolls can award a Thunderforged item (again, only in Normal and Heroic), so probably the only thing to plan for ahead of time is having Lesser Charms ready and waiting to exchange for Mogu Runes of Fate.

♫Said if you want to call me baby, just go ahead now♫ (Two Princes, get it? Ugh just keep reading...)

On Doomed Azeroth, Black Prince Choose You
As we’re all aware, Wrathion, the Black Prince, using his voodoo crystal ball of Black Dragonflight future-sight has determined Azeroth is headed for (more?) doom and despair. To help solve this problem he wants to give you a Legendary item, but only after you’ve gone around terrorizing the world and killing a bunch of people. Fishy. Over the course of each patch he gives you some tasks for new toys, ultimately leading to your very own Legendary item in (presumably) patch 5.4.

This is where things get a bit tricky because, up until this point, everyone has been working to obtain their Sha-Touched weapons, the gem to put into it, and adding a prismatic slot. But in 5.2 the reward veers left, no Sha-touched weapons will drop in the new raid, and the new Wrathion reward is a Legendary meta gem, which leaves your Sha-touched weapon and gem to be replaced by what will certainly be more powerful weapons in the Throne of Thunder. You will still be able to apply the prismatic slot upgrade to 5.2 raid weapons, though.

Considering the prismatic slot is usable on 5.2 raid weapons, my recommendation would be to try to catch up if you haven’t yet, but balance it against other priorities. You’d be pretty lucky to get a weapon drop your first time into the new raid, and if you’re running LFR the raid is broken up into smaller sections which open one at a time each week. So if you have more pressing matters, this is one thing you can continue to work on even after 5.2 releases and probably not be too far behind.

Well at least they don't have robots full of blood. Nevermind.

It's Not a Tabard!
In 5.2 you’ll be able to champion a Mists of Pandaria faction (except for Black Prince) by choosing a new option added to your reputation list (in the same list where you can show that rep as your XP bar). By championing a faction you can earn 750 reputation for the first Heroic dungeon each day, and 325 for the first Scenario. This allows you to augment (or avoid) daily quests with those factions to get to Exalted that much quicker.

In addition, if you have The Tillers at Exalted and all of your farm plots unlocked, you’ll be able to take on a work order each day from one of the various factions (except for Black Prince) which will reward you with additional rep.

The new reputation and quest hub in 5.2 is pretty cool; it unlocks and builds up via server progression a la Isle of Quel’danas. What will be a lot cooler for some of you though is that there are no Valor items associated with the rep. (Alliance / Horde) At least this time around, all the Valor items are tied to a raid reputation, which you can earn even through LFR. It will require boss kills though, so no ICC rep runs.

I know some people are already saying they’re going to stop doing dailies until then. I don’t know; I’m already playing more or less every day, doing a daily hub here and there isn’t going to break my time-bank, and I’m still going to be hitting Exalted quicker than if I was waiting. Up to you, but I’m hoping to have less and less 5.0 content to have to think about once 5.2 hits.

That'll Do, Tree
I think that about does it. You’ll of course want to look at mixing up food and elixirs, and gathering mats for crafted items. There’s also the new the world bosses, but that’s not content you really need to prepare for specifically, at least not to the same extent you need to gear up for a raid dungeon. It may be worth noting though that one of the world bosses, Oondasta, is intended to be crazy-difficult. If you’re not in an organized Heroic-level raid group and teaming up with other Heroic-level raid groups, you’re going to want to stick to the other world boss, Nalak; although, keep in mind Nalak unlocks with the island’s server progression, so it’s something to look forward to. Sha of Anger still has Tier-14 and Season-12 items, so that’s certainly something a lot of people will continue to hit up, and I expect it to stay pretty active even well into the new patch.

Let’s open it up to your comments! How are you planning and preparing for 5.2? Did I miss something? Any tips or tricks on how to maximize your time as you progress?

Thanks for reading, may all your bonus rolls be BiS, and I’ll see you in-game!

Micah “Bashiok” Whipple is a Community Manager for World of Warcraft and thinks you’re just the bees knees. It’s worth mentioning though that he’s deathly afraid of bees, as well as various types of pivotal hinges.

I think the problem here is LFR dropping 502 loot. If it dropped 496 loot you'd have a point, and I'm almost positive my guild would continue working on heroic T14, at least part of the time. But since LFR drops better loot, my guild will just expect people to be 502 ilvl quickly, and we'll pop into T15, at least farming the first 4 bosses or so until we can make more progress.

Plus you forget that for the good part of BC, Mount Hyjal had an attunement and you couldn't farm gear from there until you killed Kael'thas and Vashj. It's the reason why so many guilds went 3/5 and 4/9 the week after they downed Kael'thas. Not saying that method was better, just saying that Blizzard had artificial walls keeping people in their "proper" tier until they had the skill and dedication to move on. There are no such walls in this expansion, only new LFRs that provide better gear, and new tiers that make old ones pointless.

Hmm, they could always go back to having the heroic raids require some piece (or multiple pieces) of obscure resist gear only available from the previous tier raids. Something like the Onyxia scale cloak. In fact if you did it on a bunch of gear you could have the lfr drop the same ilvl and stats as normal but missing that required resist. This would eliminate the pressure from your guild for you to do lfr.

It will be quite tricky for someone doing just LFR to actually get into the new one. Heart and Terrace drop 483 ilvl gear so you'll pretty much have to be wearing almost full set, which, with current loot system's chance of getting something useful is just hard. At least new valor gear will boost ilvl heavily but I think they should release 476 ilvl epic weapons (not too much to ask with 5.2 gear being at 522).

I still think they should maintain the upgrade system, and make ToT gear impossible to upgrade until 5.3. Hell, at least we could keep the Justice upgrades for blues. Having 471 items instead of 463 is a pretty decent help for new alts.

But you are missing the bigger picture.. they are drastically increasing the drop rates in 5.0 LFR. Also, they are DRASTICALLY decreasing the VP cost of the 489 rep gear. Nobody is going to be wanderin around in dungeon blues for very long, and certainly not long enough to worry about upgrading them with JP.

My guess is they have done the math pretty well and have a time-frame of how long they want you to be at 90 before getting into the 5.2 LFR... probably 2 5.0 LFR runs if that. Between world bosses, decreased cost of VP items, increased drop rates of LFR gear, and the 5.0 lucky charms which you can now get from killing mobs on the new island (which means you can get bonus rolls for every boss in 5.0 LFR).

It will be quite tricky for someone doing just LFR to actually get into the new one. Heart and Terrace drop 483 ilvl gear so you'll pretty much have to be wearing almost full set, which, with current loot system's chance of getting something useful is just hard. At least new valor gear will boost ilvl heavily but I think they should release 476 ilvl epic weapons (not too much to ask with 5.2 gear being at 522).

If ALL you are doing is 5.0 LFR, than yeah, it might be tricky. But there are also the world bosses that drop 496, The 5.1 Reps which give 3 pieces of 496 gear, craftables, and old reps that give 489. If ALL you are doing is 5.0 LFR, then you also had nowhere else to spend your valor, so almost every piece of 483 LFR drops should also be upgraded by now (what else did you spend your vp on).

I have not stepped foot into a normal 5.0 raid and I am like ilvl 491 on my main.

---------- Post added 2013-02-11 at 10:14 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Hjelpen

its only the island testing, and if u look at their Schedule its about 3-4 days max between every stage.

Its pretty clear Blizzard is getting more and more desperate. Game going on sale and giving out patch day release well before. Looks like few millions have quit in last few weeks.

do you know how pathetic you sound?

Of course they have to give out an estimate of when the patch is coming... same way they ALWAYS do at the end of an arena season. They also always give a heads up whenever their is a major currency conversion.

I don't understand clearly what the new system is going to be after patch 5.2.
Will VP continue to be given for daly quests on Pandaria (i.e. Lotus, Pandashan, and other factions) or will there be no VP points at all for any daliy quest (including quests in the new "a la Isle of Quel’danas") ?

It will be quite tricky for someone doing just LFR to actually get into the new one. Heart and Terrace drop 483 ilvl gear so you'll pretty much have to be wearing almost full set, which, with current loot system's chance of getting something useful is just hard. At least new valor gear will boost ilvl heavily but I think they should release 476 ilvl epic weapons (not too much to ask with 5.2 gear being at 522).

I don't really understand why you believe that. The 5.1 496 gear + the new 522 valor gear. Sha / galleion and crafted 496 stuff will make it a joke to get to 480. They are also going to increase the drop chance for gear in the current LFR.

My warrrior hit 90 last week and I am already at 479. If I wasn't cheap I could buy some 496 stuff and easily be over 480.

Of course they have to give out an estimate of when the patch is coming... same way they ALWAYS do at the end of an arena season. They also always give a heads up whenever their is a major currency conversion.

Arena season is not starting on day one of 5.2. And since its not confirmed date - ppl should not be taking the currency conversion seriously.

Secondly... They are yet to start any 25 man testing. Heroic testing is starting now. Its pretty obvious they are trying to get some ppl buying the game and then probably postponing it for few weeks.

Keep in mind, the progression when discussing the 470ish ilvl is going to be LFR to LFR.

---------- Post added 2013-02-11 at 10:36 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Wowalixi

I think the problem here is LFR dropping 502 loot. If it dropped 496 loot you'd have a point, and I'm almost positive my guild would continue working on heroic T14, at least part of the time. But since LFR drops better loot, my guild will just expect people to be 502 ilvl quickly, and we'll pop into T15, at least farming the first 4 bosses or so until we can make more progress.

Plus you forget that for the good part of BC, Mount Hyjal had an attunement and you couldn't farm gear from there until you killed Kael'thas and Vashj. It's the reason why so many guilds went 3/5 and 4/9 the week after they downed Kael'thas. Not saying that method was better, just saying that Blizzard had artificial walls keeping people in their "proper" tier until they had the skill and dedication to move on. There are no such walls in this expansion, only new LFRs that provide better gear, and new tiers that make old ones pointless.

Yeah the higher ilvl from T15 LFR very well could be the big problem. I would have no issue scaling it back to equal or be just below Heroic T14 gear. Yeah I forgot about the MH attunement, sorry about that. I absolutely think that the attunements need to come back in some form though. Requiring you to kill all of the end bosses of the previous tier before moving on. Much like LFR requires you to finish out one segment before you progress. There does need to be some rational flow to where you as your character needs to progress through the story. Not to where "Oh we landed on Pandaria" followed immediately by "hey a raid and I just killed Garrosh, guess I'm done then."